The leader of an armed occupation at a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon and others were arrested on Tuesday after shots were fired during a traffic stop, leaving one person dead and another wounded, the FBI said.

As the militia standoff in eastern Oregon entered its second week, Ammon Bundy and his followers have faced a loss of supporters and rising opposition from Burns, a nearby town to the wildlife refuge the militia continues to occupy.

If the gun-toting men were black or Muslim, went the typical argument, they would have incurred the full, militarized wrath of law enforcement. So it might appear, but if you think law enforcement agencies are being deferential out of fear, you couldn’t be more wrong.

It’s tempting, but specious, to draw comparisons between the publicity-seeking antics in Oregon and senseless tragedies involving law enforcement. That hasn’t stopped ideologues on the left from being as vocal in their enthusiasm for a shootout as anti-government militia types.

“You think if a bunch of damn Muslims had took this place over, the cops and the media would be diddling around like this? The blacks, the Muslims, the Mexicans, they get all the attention they want even when they’re not doin’ nothin’, but guys who look like you and me, we get bupkes. A white man just can’t catch a break.”

Federal law enforcement officials on Monday sought to bring a peaceful end to the weekend occupation of a headquarters of a U.S. wildlife refuge in Oregon by self-styled militiamen, while authorities said all staff at the facility were safe.

A group of self-styled militiamen occupied the headquarters of a U.S. wildlife refuge in eastern Oregon in a standoff with authorities, officials and local media reports said on Sunday, in the latest dispute over federal land use in the West.

January 3, 2016

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